Dodge’s 840-horsepower Challenger SRT Demon roars off into the sunset

Posted:
Thursday, May 31, 2018 10:36 AM EDT

By Stephen Edelstein

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The light that burns twice as bright also burns half as long. The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon took the world by storm with its 840-horsepower Hemi V8 and fanatical focus on quarter-mile times. But the Demon was never intended to be more than a limited edition, and now the last one has rolled off the assembly line.

The last Demon will auctioned off with the last Dodge Viper in a promotion appropriately named The Ultimate Last Chance. All proceeds from the sale will go to the United Way. The two cars will cross the block together during the Barrett-Jackson Northeast auction at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut, in June.

The final Demon was built at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Brampton, Ontario, Canada factory. The plant also builds other versions of the Challenger, as well as the Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 sedans. The Demon was sent to an upfit center for additional work, including special Viper Red exterior paint and other custom elements.

The Demon was a car like no other, and not just because, for its era, it made more power than any production car to ever wear the Dodge badge. Its 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 produced 808 hp and 717 pound-feet of torque on pump gas, or 840 hp and 770 lb-ft on 100-octane racing fuel. But it was Dodge’s focus on optimizing the Demon for drag racing that really set it apart.

Dodge gave the Demon equipment you normally wouldn’t expect to find on a production car, including a transbrake that held the car stationary while in gear for quicker launches, and massive Nitto tires that blurred the line between street and drag rubber. This allowed the Demon to do 0 to 60 mph in 2.3 seconds, and run the quarter mile in 9.65 seconds 140 mph. The Demon was so quick that Dodge claimed it was banned from drag racing by the National Hot Rod Association. However, that wasn’t quite the whole story.

Demons came standard with only one seat and no audio system, but Dodge offered to add those items back for $1 each. The car was priced at $86,090 (including mandatory destination charge and gas guzzler tax), or over $15,000 more than even the 707-hp Challenger SRT Hellcat. Just 3,300 Demons were unleashed during the car’s one model year of production.